


Krayminski and Hart

by frankiesin



Series: discontinued works [25]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Harry Lives, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:43:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16900359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: Harry Hart doesn't die. He doesn't remember much else.(Kingsman AU)





	Krayminski and Hart

 

Harry Hart laid out in the hot Kentucky sun, his mind flickering in and out of consciousness as he bled out from the bullet wound he had received only a few minutes ago. He heard footsteps, someone approaching him, but he turned to unconsciousness once again before the mystery person revealed themselves to him. Harry did not awaken again for a long time, but while he was unconscious, his brain dreamed. He thought of Eggsy the most, because of all the people Harry had loved, Eggsy was the most alive and the most vibrant. He thought of Ian and Merlin and Sofia and Mikhail, of Sven and the many other men that he had invited into his house, and occasionally into his heart. He thought of James and Lee, who should have had a future--maybe not both with Kingsman, but at least with each other, as friends. Harry thought of a man with scars for a face, of Sergei Kobrsk, of his own father and all the other men and women who did terrible things. Harry thought that now, especially after what had happened in that church in Kentucky, _Harry_ belonged on that list of horrible people.

 

Harry blinked into awareness a short time after he put himself onto that list, and the first thing he saw was a ceiling. It was a hospital ceiling; Harry had been in enough of those to know what their ceilings looked like. He blinked a few more times, just to make sure that he was actually alive, and then turned his head to the side. There was a nurse beside him. She looked tired, stressed, and very afraid. She smiled at him, though. "Hello, Mr. Hart. I'm going to take the breathing tube out of you and give you a glass of water. Then we can talk, alright?"

 

"We don't have time for that." A second voice, also female, said. Harry followed the scared brown eyes of the nurse to see a young woman with white blonde hair and all-black attire. She was covered in burn scars and Harry couldn't see any of her face. Suddenly all he could think about was the Yugoslavian man who killed Ian and Mikhail and tried to kill Merlin and Sofia. Harry's breathing increased and he could hear the heart rate monitor increasing exponentially. He became very aware of the breathing tube still shoved down his throat, and the bandages wrapped around his head. Harry fumbled out of the tube, coughing as it came out. He resisted the urge to throw it at the woman in black. "Who are you? What--what do you want with me?"

 

"You're not safe here, Uncle Harry." She said. _Uncle Harry_. Only two people had ever called him that, as Harry was an only child and Merlin was both asexual and aromantic. Misha and Manya--Sofia's kids--referred to Harry as their uncle. But Manya had been dead for years and, as far as Harry knew, Misha was a man. So _was_ this Manya, somehow back from the dead? It wouldn't be impossible, considering her genetics. Harry forced himself to calm down. He took a deep breath, ignoring how the nurse had stood and moved towards the door. "Manya?"

 

She nodded. "That is one of my names, yes. My mother and father called you a friend. My brother called you a father."

 

She turned to the nurse. "I suggest you leave now and figure out a way to keep people away from this room for at least an hour."

 

The nurse nodded, and was gone. Manya turned to Harry once again. She didn't say anything to him, but walked over and offered him her hand. Harry took it and Manya helped him up and out of the bed. The two, young woman and older man, walked out of the hospital hand in hand. Harry asked her where they were, and she told him that they were still in Kentucky but that they needed to get somewhere safe quickly. Apparently the SIM cards that had caused Harry to lose control and go apeshit (and wasn't that a completely terrifying thought; losing control like that) were still out there. Manya didn't know when they would go off, but she and Harry both agreed that it would most likely be sooner that later. They continued walking through Kentucky, pausing only at a gas station where Manya held the cashier at gunpoint while Harry took an energy drink from the refrigerator in the back. He was dehydrated, and besides, it was only _one_ drink. Eggsy would probably laugh at how basic and pathetic the whole thing was.

 

They headed to the airport, because apparently Manya was terrifying enough that she could do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Harry envied that amount of power, and wondered how Manya had garnered it all when everyone who knew her thought that she was dead.

 

The airport was as busy as usual, but because neither Manya nor Harry had planned to be flying anywhere, they had to actually go up to a kiosk and buy a set of tickets to Venezuela. Harry asked Manya why the hell they were going to Venezuela when his whole life was back in London, but Manya said that she had connections there. Harry didn't bother to ask what those connections were. If Manya wanted to share something with him, then she would. Harry was a spy. He knew how to at least act like he had some patience left in him.

 

It took longer than should have been necessary to get the tickets, but that was because Harry didn't have any kind of identification on him and no matter how many times Manya swore to the desk clerk that Harry was safe, the desk clerk wouldn't let them through. So Manya and Harry had had to make a minor excursion to the nearest printing store to make a copy of Harry's identification papers. Illegal? Yes. Necessary for the situation? Most likely.

 

It was on their way through security that all hell broke loose and Manya screamed at Harry to get away. Harry knew what it was this time. He knew what was happening to him now, and he was terrified on the inside because he could not stop himself from hurting people no matter how hard he tried. Manya seemed in control and he envied her. And that thought sent him spiraling towards her with one of the TSA scanner things gripped tightly in his fist. He hit her in the head, again and again, an uncontrollable fury pulsing through his veins even as he and Manya both screamed to stop it all. Someone else began beating on Harry as well, and Manya hit them both in the head. She hit them hard enough to knock them both out, because Harry's vision went blurry and then disappeared again, and he fell into his dreams.

 

_He stood at the bottom of the staircase with ahead of sweat dripping down his forehead and a duffle bag falling off his shoulder. The girl standing a few steps above him had blonde hair and piercing green eyes._

 

_He sat on a train and watched the same girl talking to a perverted man who wanted to buy her seven year old sister. Harry got up and tried to beat the shit out of the man. The man fought back. Harry broke a lot of bones, a few of which were his own. One was the nose of the police officer who pulled him and the man apart._

 

_He breathed out smoke on the top of a building while he and the girl talked. Her name was Sofia. She was going to kill her father one day. Her father was a horrible man. Harry hated her father as well, though he couldn't remember what the man looked like at all._

 

_He kissed a boy and the boy kissed back. And then Harry panicked because he was supposed to like the girl with piercing green eyes and a terrifying smile. The girl who stepped on someone's head on the first day of school. The girl who took a month to kill her father completely._

 

_He saw the same boy again, but the boy was now naked and in his bed. And Harry could see his own reflection and his hair was a mess and his lips were swollen. Harry wasn't sure if they were swollen from kissing or from fighting someone. Harry fought a lot then, didn't he?_

 

_He saw red, which turned to black, which turned to a fog and a plume of smoke and the bottom of a bottle of stolen scotch. And a Russian man who wasn't supposed to be anything but a distraction to Harry. Harry didn't think that he fell in love with the Russian man. No, there was someone else, later, that he would fall in love with. This man was just there for sex and for venting emotions that couldn't be vented elsewhere. This man was understanding, but Harry knew that he needed a better taste in partners. Harry was not a person to bring home. Harry Hart was fucked up._

 

_He was holding a small baby named Misha. The girl with green eyes was back and she was saying that the baby was hers and the Russian man's. Harry was happy for them. He was so lonely. There were not enough men in London to fill his bed._

 

_He was staring at a casket but he was not seeing it. His aunt was asking if he had any idea who killed her. Harry wasn't sure who the dead woman was. He wasn't sure if he knew who he was. He knew that the Russian man could not help him with this. He knew that he would kill whoever killed his mother. He knew he wanted to kill whoever killed his mother. He knew he was going to be a Kingsman._

 

_He was pointing a gun at a dog named Mr Pickle and the dog was just watching. And Harry shot the dog because he didn't care whether Mr Pickle lived or died. He didn't care if Harry Hart lived or died. He didn't care for much of anything other than becoming the best damn agent Kingsman had ever seen. And then the bullet was a blank and My Pickle was jumping up into Harry's lap and licking at his face and Harry was relieved and there was a man in the chair next to him. Harry considered shooting that man just to see what would happen._

 

_He was laughing at the small black haired man who insisted that his name was Merlin and that he wouldn't stand for Harry being reckless the way he was. Harry wasn't trying to be mean but he thought that it was pointless. All of it. Trying to stay alive when death was always an option. Trying to be morally upright when all he did was kill and get people killed. It was all so pointless. And this small Scottish man with an army cut thought that he could solve Harry's problems somehow._

 

There was light then and Harry was in a bed. A hotel bed, considering that everything was white and bland and not what he was used to. A woman with white blonde hair sat at a desk and cleaned her gun. Harry sat up. His head felt like it had been split open and refitted incorrectly. He blinked. He blinked again. "Sofia?"

 

His voice sounded odd to his own ears. It sounded older, but not so old that he felt dead. It was unsettling. "Sofia, I think something's wrong with me."

 

"I'm not Sofia Kobrska, Harry." The woman said, and she was right. She was not Sofia Kobrska because Harry's best friend did not sound like that. Harry's best friend also had a visible face, whereas this woman had covered every part of her face. There was a black scarf covering her nose and mouth, and large sunglasses obscuring her eyes from Harry. She got up, leaving the gun behind, and walked over to him. "My name--the name you called me last--is Manya. I'm Sofia's daughter."

 

"You have an older brother, though, don't you?" Harry asked, because he remembered Sofia showing him her firstborn child. That child had been male, named Mikhail Harry Krayminski, and his parents called him Misha. Harry knew that.

 

Manya nodded in confirmation. "Harry, what is the last thing you can remember? Be honest with me."

 

_Bodies. Bodies and a church, and then an airport. And there was something in between the two massacres, but Harry couldn't remember. He was the reason there were so many bodies. He couldn't control himself. He couldn't stop himself. He was not choosing what to do. Something, someone, else was. Harry was losing his mind._

 

"Harry!" Manya nearly screamed at him, and Harry realised that he had careened off of the bed, with Manya's quick arms the only thing keeping him from hitting his head on the floor again. He had hit his head before this. That was why thinking about his past made him dizzy. He was probably suffering from a concussion.

 

"I... I remember a church." Harry said. He didn't think he could say anything else and keep the bile down. _No control. No control. He hadn't chosen to kill those people. He had been forced. That wasn't how Harry Hart functioned. Harry Hart was in control of himself. He had to be._ He took a deep breath and steadied himself. He sat up and faced this woman, this woman who was somehow Sofia Kobrska's full grown daughter. "I killed them, and I couldn't stop myself from doing it."

 

"That happens sometimes, when you're under someone else's control." She patted him on the back and he wanted to kill her. He didn't need to be patronised by someone who was younger than him. Because she had to be younger than him, even though the last birthday he remembered--before the random flashes from the church and the airport--was his twenty-fifth. His twenty-fifth birthday was in 1985. Sofia's son was five years old and Sofia had had a miscarriage four and a half months prior. Harry felt dizzy again. "Manya, what... what year is this?"

 

"What year do you think it is?" She asked him, instead of actually answering him like he wanted her to. He wanted to kill her again. The constant thought of strangling her was disturbing him. Harry didn't like it. He shook his head. "I don't know. The last year I remember... you didn't exist yet. I know I'm missing a part of my life. I want it back."

 

"We are currently in February of the year 2015. You were shot in the head yesterday, and we just survived a worldwide massacre." She said. She was changing her tactic on him, and Harry knew it. He was too frazzled to really care about that, though. He would just let her talk. He would be fine. He just needed to get his mind back. Manya stood up. "The world is going to chaos, Harry Hart. Where would you like to be?"

 

"Is your mother still alive?" Harry asked. He didn't know what his options were, because apparently he was missing a good thirty years of his life. So many people could have died in that time. So many people could have entered and exited his life and he wouldn't even know. Harry needed to go to someone who he could trust.

 

"No." Manya shook her head. "I think she died thirteen years ago, but no one really knows for sure."

 

"My Aunt, Peggy Carter?" Harry asked. He didn't know if Aunt Peggy would want to take him in. After all, she would be in her nineties now and probably no longer in charge of SHIELD. Harry didn't want to be a burden to her unless he had to, but he didn't know who else he could go to.

 

"She is in a nursing home, and has dementia." Manya's voice was softer. "I could take you to see her if you would like. I don't know if she would remember you."

 

"I would like to see her, but we both know that I couldn't stay there for very long." Harry said. Surely there was someone else. "What about your father, Mikhail? Is he alive?"

 

"He died when I was a child. And before you ask about my brother, I would prefer not to disrupt his life." Manya said. "Out of all of us, he seems to have found the best case of domesticity. I don't want to ruin that by coming back from the dead, and I don't think you would want to ruin it by coming back without the last thirty years of your life in order."

 

"Is there anyone at Kingsman who I would know?" Harry said. He doubted it; thirty years was a long time for a Kingsman field agent to survive. Harry felt very lucky that he was still alive.

 

"There's Robert Graham. You would call him Merlin, most likely." Manya said to him. Harry wondered if she was actually looking at him, because none of her face was visible. Harry reached his hand up to her face to pull off the mask covering the bottom half, and she let him. She was smiling underneath. "You know, between the two of us, we only have one real eye."

 

"What?"

 

"Harry, your face got shot. You're lucky you only lost an eye and thirty years of your life." Manya reached out towards the left side of his face, and that was when Harry realised that he couldn't see from that side of his face. Panic didn't rise up in the back of his throat this time. Losing his eye didn't seem like such a horrible thing. He reached up to the left side of his face slowly, his fingertips lightly tracing his flesh. There was a large bandage where his eye should have been, and it covered a large portion of his head. His hair had been shaved down to what Harry suspected was an uneven buzz. Harry dropped his hand back down to his side. "I would like to go back to London, assuming that that is where Merlin is right now."

 

"Straight to England?" She asked. Harry shook his head. "No, I would like to see my aunt first."

 

Manya nodded her head, and told Harry that they would head to Washington the next day. Harry needed to rest, and it wasn't as though the world was going to go to shit again in the next twenty four hours. Hopefully the world didn't have that much bad karma stored up. If it did, Harry felt sorry for all the good people who would be affected by the next shitstorm, because the next shit storm most likely would not spare anyone.

 

Harry slept restlessly that night, fading in and out of consciousness because his dreams were not very welcoming. They were memories, he knew that, but they didn't last long enough in his mind for him to figure out who was in them. There were so many different faces, but when he finally decided to just remain awake at around six in the morning, he couldn't remember any of them. His heart was twisted in his chest and his chest felt as though someone has stomped on it, so he assumed that the people in his dreams meant something important to him, at least at one point in his life. Harry quickly put those thoughts to the back of his mind, because he had other things to do besides try and figure out mystery faces. He was going to see his aunt, for the first time in who knew how long (Harry himself had no idea). He was looking forward to seeing her, though. The Aunt Peggy that Harry remembered was a rebellious and strong-willed woman who took nobody’s shit and was very progressive. She also had a lot of inappropriate stories regarding the Howling Commandos and their reckless leader. Harry enjoyed those stories, or at least he had when he had been younger and barely an adult.

 

"Ready to go, Uncle Harry?" Manya said. Harry hadn't even realised that she was awake. She hadn't moved at all for the past hour that Harry had been up and meandering around the room, trying to figure out his life in 2015. Harry was standing at the foot of her bed with his hand over his bandages, picking at the already fraying fabric. He watched with his one still available eye as Manya sat up and brushed her hair back into her face, but not before Harry caught a glimpse of metal where her eyeballs should have been. She gave him a smile and reached over for her sunglasses. "I'm not going to wear the face mask today. It will scare a lot less civilians, and besides, I'm not on duty."

 

"What is your duty, exactly?" Harry asked. _And where did your eyes go? And will I look like that if I go back to Merlin with you?_ Harry kept his eye on her, watching her every move as best as he could.

 

"Oh, I'm not with Kingsman, if that's what you're thinking." She got out of bed and grabbed her shoes. She was already dressed in an all black outfit, and Harry saw her black jacket was hung up beside the bed. She grabbed it and shrugged it on. "I am a private contractor, but I will occasionally help my wife out with her job. She runs an international company."

 

Harry stared at her. He might not have had all his memories intact, but he did know mercenary speak when he heard it. He remembered how Mikhail talked about his work to civilians. Harry raised his one remaining eyebrow at her. "What kind of company are we talking about, Manya? I like knowing just how criminal my companions are before I introduce them to my family members."

 

Manya sighed. "I kill people and my wife sells cocaine across the Americas to rich white kids with too much money."

 

"Well good for her." Harry nodded in approval. It wasn't as though he could really judge Manya or her wife about any of their life choices. Harry had, after all, spent three days of his life torturing Sergei Kobrsk for no good reason other than he wanted to hurt the man beyond repair. He had probably committed quite a few unspeakable acts over the years, even though he couldn't remember any of them. Harry had never been one for keeping strong morals. He also rarely showed mercy against his opponents.

 

He and Manya skipped in the offered continental breakfast, though Manya did snag a piece of bread on their way out the door. The hotel was completely silent, and there were actually a few bodies in the main area. The glass windows were shattered and there was a bit of blood still on the carpet. The one lone employee had a makeshift bandage around his leg, and his face looked like it had seen much better days. Harry tried not to think how many people he had rendered that way, or worse, when he hadn't known what he was doing.

 

Harry had no qualms about hurting or even killing someone in cold blood, but he needed to be in control when he did so. Having another person control his choices terrified the living shit out of him. He needed that sense of power over his own movements, over his body and his actions. Without it, Harry didn't consider himself a real person. Without control, who was he but a savage beast with a gun?

 

Everything was silent the whole way to Washington. The roads were crowded with bodies and smouldering car carcasses. Harry and Manya knicked a cab and took it the whole way there, stopping for gas when they needed it and stopping for a meal once they hit the Virginia border. Nothing much was open because the whole country seemed to be reeling from the massacre only a day before, and Harry felt as though he had woken up in a dystopian wasteland. He wondered if Manya felt as out of place as he did, but she hadn't forgotten a large portion of her life. Harry had. Harry was alone in this journey, despite the fact that Manya was driving beside him the whole way to Washington.

 

They pulled up to the retirement home just as the sun was setting. Manya parked the car and turned in her seat to face Harry. "I'm blind."

 

"And you're telling me this now, after we drove for nearly eight hours across two states?" Harry asked. How the hell had Manya driven them from Kentucky without killing anyone if she couldn't see? Harry only had one eye now and he was having a hard enough time getting around. He couldn't imagine having no eyes to help him not run into things.

 

Manya pushed her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear, and took off her large sunglasses. Across the top part of her face, there was metal plating. Her eyes looked like a futuristic robot's eyes, and the "pupils" were emitting a pale white-grey glow. The eyes moved around, as though scanning Harry. Manya pointed to her face. "These things read heat signatures and have depth perceiving abilities so that I can function like a normal human being. My first employers gave them to me when I first went to work with them. It was part of the sign up deal."

 

"Why did you stop working for them?" Harry asked her, sitting upright in his seat. Manya broke out in a smile and put her sunglasses back on. "I killed them. They were Hydra, and I'm not a big fan of Hydra. Hydra did some shitty things to my family, by the way, but I think that that all happened after you turned twenty five. You probably don't remember them yet."

 

"I remember something about Hydra." Harry said. He remembered Sofia's younger sister, and a man named Calix who looked like he was afraid of his own shadow. He remembered running to take a plane to Russia because Sofia needed him, and he remembered her crying. He remembered that there had been a man in all black lurking in the corner. He had been an American, but the few words Harry remembered him speaking were in Russian. Harry opened his eyes (at some point he had closed them). "I remember your mother having to run away from someone. And I remember there being another man with her when I got to her. He had long brown hair, and he was a Russian speaking American. Do you know who that would have been?"

 

Manya laughed, and it chilled Harry to the bone. She was not like either of her parents in demeanour, at least not when she was like this. She unlocked the car. "Brush up on your soviet intelligence history, Uncle Harry. The Winter Soldier was a pretty relevant man even when you were a child."

 

_The Winter Soldier. Harry had pointed his weapon at the man in the corner as soon as he realised just who was in the house with Sofia. She was vulnerable, or as vulnerable as the Red Scare could be. Harry would not let this Soviet war machine take her out like he had taken out countless important men and women before. Harry placed a finger on the trigger. "Get the fuck out of this house."_

 

_He said it in Russian. The Winter Soldier looked up from where his dead blue gaze was locked on Sofia's small form. Harry gazed into the eyes of death once again. The eyes of death--blue this time--stared right back as the human weapon spoke. "I am not going to kill her. I would have done it already if that was my plan."_

 

_"Then what's your plan?" Harry should have shot him. He shouldn't have given that man another moment to consider how he would kill Sofia and probably Harry. "Why are you here if not to kill the Red Scare?"_

 

_"I'm taking him home to the United States, pretty boy." Sofia's voice was quiet, the Russian spoken with a smooth fluency that neither Harry nor the Winter Soldier had. "Your Aunt Peggy was friends with him, and I still have a way of contacting her. Barnes and I are going to pay her a visit, and you are welcome to join us if you would like."_

 

Harry knew that Barnes had never made it to his Aunt Peggy. He couldn't remember what had happened, but he knew that James had been taken back to Russia. And with that thought in the back of his mind, Harry got out of the stolen taxi cab and walked around to the driver seat. He opened the door and looked down at Manya, who was smiling up at him again. Harry extended his hand to her, in a gentlemanly manner. "Shall I introduce you to my aunt?"

 

"No, Harry." Manya said. "I got a message from my wife saying that someone is going to be coming for you very soon. I don't want to be there when they find you... considering my history with their family, I don't think that a meeting would go too well."

 

"So this is the end for us, then?" Harry dropped his hand and stood up to his full height. Manya nodded her head. Harry placed his hands into the pockets of his bloody, ruined bespoke suit and resisted the urge to run his hand through his hair and mess it up. "I don't suppose I'll be running into you again any time soon then?"

 

"I hope not. I am a killer, Harry. If we ever see each other again, it will most likely be from opposite ends of a gun." She was no longer smiling. She closed the door to the taxi cab and drove away, leaving Harry standing in a parking lot with only a handful of memories in order and only a vague idea of what would be happening to him in the next few days. Harry let out a sigh and gave into temptation, running his hand through his hair and letting the long strands go wild. It would curl soon enough, as there was a snowy drizzle falling from the sky.

 

Harry took his time treking across the parking lot towards the front door of the nursing home. He hadn't planned on seeing his Aunt Peggy on his own. He had just assumed that Manya would be there with him, by his side and ready to fill any missing gaps in his and his aunt's memory. He finally made it to the door, and it opened automatically for him. There was an audible gasp from the receptionist, but she relaxed almost immediately and put a hand to her chest to still her beating heart. "Dear God, you gave me a fright. I thought that you were going to be another one of those mad men. I thought that there was another attack coming on."

 

"I'm not going to hurt anyone." Harry said, and he meant it. Enough blood had been spilled for now. Harry couldn't do anything to avenge the fallen world until he got his memories back and remembered who had started this whole mess. "I just came here to see my aunt. She's here as a Margaret Carter, I believe?"

 

"Ah, yes, Ms. Peggy is everyone's favourite. She's a little bit gone in the head, but she has the best stories." The woman was smiling now. She handed a room key over to Harry, who took it and thanked her. "You know, she thinks that she knew Captain America. I've never met the man myself, but if I had, I would have never waited as long as she did to kiss the man. Quite a nice piece of meat if you know what I mean."

 

_Muscles taut as the young man pulled at the door, his leg muscles accentuated by his pants being soaked. He was completely submerged in the water, but he didn't struggle to breathe as his back muscles rippled beneath his skin. Harry had no doubts that the young man could remove that damn metal door if he had enough time._

 

"I know exactly what you mean, ma'am." Harry said, his voice a bit deeper than before. Who was that young man he had just envisioned? Harry knew that it wasn't Steve Rogers, because Harry had seen enough pictures of the Captain to know what he looked like from any angle. He wanted to know who the young man was, because he seemed so important. So very important.

 

The receptionist gave Harry an odd look but Harry pretended to ignore it. It was his own fault, after all. He didn't know if his sexual preferences were allowed yet in 2015, and he shouldn't have just assumed that they would be. He moved at a quicker pace then, wanting nothing more than to be in the company of someone familiar.

 

He found his aunt's room quickly enough and tapped on the door. There was a quiet "come in" and then Harry opened the door. His aunt was laying in bed with a glass of water beside her. She looked uninjured but there was a nice pile of shattered glass in the wastebasket by the door. Harry got the feeling that Peggy had had her own little apeshit party during the massacre yesterday. Harry wouldn't ask her about that. Instead he silently closed the door behind himself and walked into the room. He sat himself down in the chair placed beside her bed. "Hello, Aunt Peggy. How long has it been since I last saw you?"

 

"Long enough that you got old, Harry." Her mouth quirked up in a smirk and Harry knew that, at least where it mattered, his aunt was still there. Aunt Peggy's deep brown eyes flicked up to the bandage on the side of Harry's face. "What happened to you? Was it on the job?"

 

"With Kingsman?" Aunt Peggy knew about Kingsman. Her sister had been in it, as well as her only nephew. She had even stormed the headquarters after Harry's mother had died, and demanded to be allowed to help take down the man who had killed her big sister. She slowly sat up in her bed, keeping her eyes locked on Harry and daring him to lie to her. It was the look of a seasoned investigator, someone who had dealt with too much bullshit in their life and had no time for it anymore.

 

Harry shook his head. "I honestly don't know. I just know that I suffered a head injury and now I can't remember the past thirty years of my life."

 

"Oh, Harry." Peggy reached out and placed her frail hand on top of Harry's, patting his palm lightly. He knew she didn't mean it condescendingly. She removed her hand and said. "My memory is going too, but it's because I'm getting too old, not because I got a bullet in my head. I'm assuming that it was a bullet. There's not much else that can take off half your face without killing you."

 

"I think it was a bullet as well." Harry said. He shifted forward in his seat and leaned his elbows on his aunt's bed. "Aunt Peggy, do you remember anything about me once I joined Kingsman? I could really use your help."

 

"I remember that you never got along with the man who replaced your father as Arthur, and that you brought by three or four men to see me." She laid her head back and looked up at the ceiling as though it could help fill in the more blurry parts of her memory. "You only introduced one as your boyfriend, but you and James seemed like you were a bit more than friends at one point in your lives. I think I asked you about that once, and you said something about shared life experience."

 

_"Aunt Peggy, we just have a lot of..." Harry trailed off and looked to James for some kind of answer. They had fucked a few times, but that had been more for stress relief than anything else. Now, of course, they only went out for a pint every once in a while, and nothing more, because James was looking into Alistair, the new Lancelot, and Harry wasn't interested in any kind of relationship that didn't involve him leaving bruised and beaten._

 

_James smirked. "Shared life experience. Harry and I have been through quite a lot together in our past four years at Kingsman."_

 

That was it. That was all that Harry could remember about James. Harry couldn't remember anything else about James: who he was as a Kingsman, whether or not they had actually been together or if it had just been sex, whether he was alive or not, or even when he had joined Kingsman. Harry wondered if he had been the one who had sponsored James as a candidate, but he figured that he hadn't. James, from what little Harry had picked up on him, seemed like a complete asshole. A loveable asshole, most likely, because Harry would not have stayed friends with him otherwise, but an asshole all the same. Harry didn't think that he was the type to propose an asshole. A trouble maker, someone who didn't quite fit the Kingsman mold, yes. That seemed more Harry's type of candidate. But Harry knew better than to bring in someone who was nothing but trouble. James was most likely nothing but trouble.

 

"How many times did I bring James in, do you remember?" How many times, which year, anything could be a clue to unlocking what Harry had forgotten about his past. But Aunt Peggy was pursing her lips and shaking her head. "Darling, I'm sorry but I can't quite remember. I do know that I liked him. He would have gotten on well enough with Steve, had the two boys ever met each other. Bucky would have hated him, though. James was a reckless son of a bitch. You told me once that he never wore his glasses, and it pissed Robert off so much."

 

"Robert, that's Merlin, correct?" Harry asked. Peggy nodded. Harry hung his head. "I suppose that Merlin would be the best chance I have at remembering the rest of my life."

 

"I suppose so. He wasn't very talkative, if I remember him correctly, but he was--still is, I believe--your friend. He'll want to help you, Harry." Aunt Peggy shuffled farther back down into the nest of blankets and pillows that surrounded her. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she was staring at Harry as though she hadn't seen him in years. Peggy broke out into a warm smile and raised her hand towards Harry. "Harry, my favourite nephew. I haven't seen you in _years_. Are you and Ian still waiting for Parliament to get their shit together so that you can marry that boy?"

 

"Aunt Peggy, I..." _Who was Ian? Why did that name cause Harry more pain than the throbbing pain on the left side of his face? Who had Ian been to him, to have caused him this much anguish?_ It struck Harry then that Aunt Peggy must have just had a lapse in her memory. Manya had told him that she had dementia. She had probably just forgotten that they had been talking and that Harry didn't remember Ian. Harry couldn't exactly let her know about that, though. He would have to make up something about this Ian figure who was apparently prominent enough in Harry's life that the man had, at some point, intended to marry him. Harry couldn't see himself settling down enough to marry anyone. Ian must have been special to him.

 

Harry smiled and folded his hands together, subtly switching his signet ring onto his left ring finger. It was a bit too small, but this was only for show. "Ian and I are well, Aunt Peggy. He finally convinced me to wear my signet on a different finger, at least until we decided on what engagement bands we would be using."

 

Harry held up his left hand. "I know we can't actually get married, but engagements can last as long as is necessary."

 

"Good for you, darling." Peggy's smile grew. The moment ended when there was a knock on the door. Peggy and Harry made contact, and she flicked her eyes over to his jacket, a silent question as to whether he was armed or not. Harry shook his head. He had woken up in the hotel completely unarmed, and Manya hadn't offered him anything to defend himself with. Harry thought that that wasn't the smartest decision ever made, but it was too late to go back on it.

 

He got up and walked over to the door, not taking his eyes off of it even though he wanted to look back and check that no one had gotten in past his aunt. He knew better. He also figured that Peggy was still capable enough to protect herself. If she had survived whatever massacre had caused Harry to lose his memory and get shot in the head, then she would be fine for this.

 

Harry opened the door slowly with one hand. On the other side of the door there was a young woman with wavy blonde hair and blue green eyes. She wore thick-rimmed black glasses and had an umbrella over her right arm. She was dressed in an all black suit. A Kingsman agent, most likely, and Harry wondered when the Kingsman had begun to allow women into their program. Harry's mother had been an exception, of course, but Harry knew that women were not really allowed to become Kingsman agents, at least not in 1985. Harry looked down at her without opening the door any further. "Hello. Who are you, exactly?"

 

She smiled up at him, blood red lips twisted upwards in a cocky smile that Harry remembered seeing on agents who were young enough to still think that they were the shit. "Agent Harry Hart, nice to actually meet you up close and in person. My name's Amythyst McIntire and your mate Merlin thought it was a good idea to send me after your shot up ass. So here I am, and here you are, sans your left eye. Ready to go home, Agent Hart?"

 

He was, if only he could find his home again.

 


End file.
